On Jun 16, 2006, at 1:55 PM, Karl-Johan Ankarblom wrote:
Hi everyone!
I'm lurking around with ideas for plug-ins I've not yet seen for
Finale.
Do you know anyone who would be interested in developing the following
(I'm not near being a programmer myself) :
1. "Transposer" When transposing arrangements more than a major
second I find I in most cases want to revoice my chord-structures.
This takes considerable time. It would be wonderful to have a tool
like: "Please keep pitches within this range, then transpose" This
would make the tool move the pitches of the chord around (moving, if
necessary, bottom note to the top etc) so that the chord is keept in
its original range. Imagine such a tool being applied to a whole
righthand keyboard part, or even a complete Trombone-section on 4
staves!
I don't do this often enough to need it (I prefer to choose my own
voicings when I need alter keys that far away from the original) but
there is a fairly quick workaround. For piano parts, explode the chord
into however many separate staves you need (Mass Edit 2), transpose the
top note 8vb or the bottom note 8va (one key 6,7,8 or 9 in the Mass
Edit tool) then implode (1 in Mass Edit). Drag the resultant voicing
back onto the piano RH and delete the extra staves. This is great for
creating Drop-2 voicings and Drop 2+4 voicings, too.
For a trombone section, it's even easier. Transpose trombone 1 8vb,
then copy it (cmd C). Drag the trb 2 to 1, 3 to 2, and 4 to 3, then
paste the trombone part that is still copied to the clipboard to trb 4.
If you want to implode and explode, you can, but this is so easy you
hardly need it.
2 "Jazz/Commercial Tools" There are MANY tasks a commercial
arranger/orchestrator will want to do that I haven't yet seen
supported by Finale or any plug-ins.
Try Robert Patterson's Copyist's Assistant plugin to see if it has what
you need. You might be surprised.
If there is anything you don't see (be specific!) write back, as there
may be another plugin to do what you need.
For chord symbols, though, if you don't have Bill Duncan's ChordSuf
font, you are stuck with the barely-adequate JazzCord suffixes.
a) Topline-notation. Add full chords, make the plug-in make only the
topnote visable (stems up, and stem extended un octave under the
toppitch) with the complete chord sounding in playback. Or for
copyists: just ad the topnote and the plugin will turn the stem up and
then extend the stem under the topnote. Would save SO MUCH time.
Yes, this would be very good! It's a real kludge to do right now!
b) "Orchestrator"/Doubler, make the plug-in distribute tones according
to lists the user termines himself. For ex: Piccolo 8va (according to
the source selection), Flute loco, Oboe 1 loco, Oboe 2 loco, Clar 1,
loco, Clar 2, 8vb etc etc
I dunno, drag and drop is SO easy, it's hard to imagine a plugin that
would make it easier.
c) A clipboard!! Be able to copy and name sections like "Verse",
"Bridge" etc on a userfriendly clipboard. Just drag and drop from a
window into the score! I know one can use "Clip-files" but I think it
should be easier and more accesible.
Clip files ARE pretty easy already. Are you using keyboard commands,
rather than mousing it all the time? On the Mac, cmd-opt-C makes a clip
file, cmd-opt-V pastes it in, while cmd-opt-I inserts it. You still
have to make sure you have set the things you want copied, but it is
hard to imagine a plugin making this any easier.
You can also use the computer's clipboard, but it can't hold more than
one thing at a time. It seems to me that there is already something
like this available as a third-party program - nothing to do with
Finale, but it is supposed to work with almost any program. Does
somebody know what this could be?
One more option that you might not have though of. In the Window menu
(not the WindowS menu!) click New Window. This will be a duplicate of
the file you now have open. Select Tile Windows. You can now have both
windows in two different places, so you can drag and drop say, bars 1
to 32 from one window to drop it onto bar 65 in the other window. The
two windows can be at different resolutions, too, and you can resize
them as you like. This is as close to a clipboard as I think we can
manage, though you could also have another, different file open and
call it Verse if you want, and drag and drop from there.
d) Immideate drummarkings! To be able to select a section of the
Trumpet 1-part (for ex.) and the plug-in, in one click!, makes it into
markings in the Drumpart! This also takes time right now...
We already have this one. Run the Create Cue plugin, then run the
Single Pitch plugin to make it all the same note (G5 for space over the
staff.) If you already have things in other layers in the drum part,
you will want to select Show Active Layer only before running the
Single Pitch plugin, so that it only operates on the cue notes.
Christopher
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